Most Americans do not realize that access to library reading records has been around ever since computers entered that profession.
I worked, while on sabbatical a few years back (mid-1990s), in my hometown Public Library as their Maintenance Director.
The senior staff routinely check ALL reading lists of ALL who check out books. They do this to follow trends in reading habits, presumably so as to provide more books in the areas people read most (such as Novels).
However, what nobody has ever said is that they also have the ability to check exactly who is reading what, and they do so... I can testify to this because I have seen and heard them doing it.
So, what the Library Associations are NOT telling us, is that their members have been routinely checking our reading habits for many years. They can use that information any way they please, with zero oversight control by anyone other than themselves.
A Patriot Act was not needed so as to have access to those lists, in other words, but what the Act does do is to allow government the same rights that Librarians already have given themselves!
Seems reasonable to me...
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